PREVENT DAYLIGHTING
Finding water management solutions for continual groundwater treatment

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Project Background

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) was a rocket engine development and testing site for nearly 60 years, building rockets that sent astronauts to the Moon. The industrial chemicals used during rocket engine testing, namely tetrachloroethylene (TCE), contaminated the groundwater and settled into the fractures and pores of the sandstone bedrock. The Boeing Company, as the current owner of the property, is committed to managing the groundwater and contaminant plums at the 2,850 acre site. Mitigation of groundwater contamination is expected to continue for decades.

Problem

Groundwater management at SSFL includes the prevention of daylighting – above ground channelization – contaminated water. To achieve this goal, Boeing has elected to pump and treat groundwater to drawdown water levels below surface springs. Unfortunately, there is not, at present, a sustainable location to outfall treated groundwater, and treatment operations are sporadic.



Finding Solutions

By providing an analysis of possible options, this research aims to find a suitable outfall environment that would allow continual groundwater treatment at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory




Objectives

  1. Evaluate how channel flow from the discharge of treated groundwater might influence soil moisture and vegetation communities by transforming ephemeral channels into perennial streambeds.

  2. Investigate useful alternatives to the proposed surface discharge.

Client: Boeing

Boeing is currently running the remedation activites at the Santa Susana site.

Learn More About Boeing’s Remediation of SSFL

More Information

This is a capstone group project for the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California Santa Barbara.